Trash Burning companies eye Albany

The city is looking at a long-term solution to its garbage problem. The Rapp Road landfill will be filled up by the end of year, and a planned replacement dump in Coeymans appeared stalled by environmental problems. The state is considering a city request to expand Rapp Road for the fourth time into the environmentally-sensitive Pine Bush, and demanded that the city look at its strategy.

So Mayor Jerry Jennings set up a committee last year to look at the matter, and the committee decided to put out a “request for information,” where private companies could offer their technological solutions. A report issued by the planning committee this week revealed that 15 companies responded, and 12 of those involved some sort of garbage incineration or thermal treatment.

See the full story in today’s Times Union…

Brian Nearing

2 Responses

Of course your going to get those kind of proposals if that’s what you ask for from proposals. The city asked for “technological” solutions, ruling out social policy, tax incentives, waste exportation, or the processing of source separated waste.

Regardless, even if the city wanted to front the hundreds of millions (if not close to a big billion dollars) to build an incinerator, they would not have it done for a decade, with all of the permitting requirements and lawsuits surrounding it. It would be fought tooth and nail. And by that time, they’d already used up the Rapp Road landfill and would be exporting trash. It would be incredibly costly to switch policy after that, for a billion dollar incinerator.

The solution has to be reduce-reuse-recycle. Non-beneficially reused or recycled solid waste must be HIGHLY TAXED, to encourage better, a bit more costly uses of material.

Indeed, $80/ton exportation plus $40/ton taxed waste, would be cheaper then a $150/ton incinerator. A $100/ton composting operation or a $60/ton recycling center would even be cheaper. And all of them would better then expanding again in the Pine Bush.